


Unspoken Dreams

by samariumwriting



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Male My Unit | Reflet | Robin, Night Terrors, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 05:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19823728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: For a long time, Robin has been having dreams of battles he has never experienced. They always feature someone important. Someone Robin has no recollection of ever encountering.





	Unspoken Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> For the Chrobin week prompt one, battle and war.

Sometimes, Robin dreamt of things that never were. He supposed that was the problem with pouring over books on tactics, examining historical armour and weapons. It was something he had been drawn to for as long as he could remember, but as an interest it came with its drawbacks.

He dreamed, as a teenager, of a tightly knit group of combat specialists, weaving battle plans. Everything fell into place, every second, and they practically weaved between the forces they were constantly up against. Nothing could stop them. They waited for enemies to come to them, and when they did, they were perfectly prepared.

The faces never stuck, but he knew they were recurring. He knew somewhere in his mind that they were, and it was a feeling he never understood having. But have it he did, and it wasn’t exactly a bad thing. It was just a thing. He dreamt of battles when he’d never experienced war or violence.

But that changed as an adult. He didn’t know if it was because he was away from home and afraid, or if the violence he’d seen got translated into his dreams (surely, surely his brain had encountered enough scuffles in a playground to put the pieces together, but apparently not until now), or if something else had changed somehow, but the dreams of battles changed.

Everything felt more real. It didn’t feel like he was guiding dancers around a stage anymore. If he made the wrong step, called the wrong order, someone could be badly hurt. Someone could die. There was so much blood in these dreams. Blood staining the ground, tattered clothes, faces grimy with dirt and sweat, a sharp smell of blood and pain.

The dreams of the past had been fun. They’d fit together like an intricately put together puzzle, where everything did exactly as he’d planned. But in these new dreams, even if he did everything he could think of, sometimes it didn’t turn out okay. A stray arrow hit a frail, back lines medic and she fell from her horse, motionless.

Distracted, her friend rushed to her side, attempting to plug the gap in the line of support. That worried her brother, who would drop any priority to save her. He’d take any blow to save her. And, somewhere in his heart, Robin knew that this man was the most important person on any battlefield, and if he died it would all be over for them, at least in the long run. He didn’t know how he knew. But he knew it.

For a while, the dreams were unbearable. It was hard to sleep, and once he did manage to get to sleep he only managed it in snatches most of the time. He woke so shaken that he usually just got up again, so ‘sleep’ turned into ‘two naps at some point in the hours between eleven pm and eight am’. It left him exhausted, but he was just about managing, even if he was tired and faltering.

But it really was wearing him down. He was at university; everyone was staying up late to do all the things that for some reason they couldn’t do during the day, and Robin couldn’t, because if he did then he’d have to get through a full day of studying on about three hours of sleep and he didn’t have that kind of willpower (or budget for caffeine).

And that was when the person in his dreams gained a face and a name and he didn’t even really know how it happened, but- he was getting ahead of himself.

Chrom was the name of the person. No, that wasn’t right either.

He met Chrom about halfway through his second term at university. In a library, because Robin basically lived in libraries. Chrom was sat across from him, sat in the seat by the window that Robin always sat in, but he’d never seen Chrom before so presumably Chrom didn’t know that it was His Spot. 

Chrom was already there when Robin arrived, just before nine in the morning. He remained there, nearly motionless, for three hours, just flitting his unmoving gaze between a dense-looking economics textbook and his laptop.

Robin had been half staring at him the whole time. There was something undeniably familiar about this man he was sure he’d never met before, yet completely unsure at the same time. It was throwing him off, and third century BC Greek battle formations had never been more boring. It didn’t hurt that Chrom was nice to look at.

It was when he got up that Chrom finally looked over, smiled, and waved. “Hi,” he whispered. “You look like you need a study break.” Friendly, too. Robin was starting to think that mystery man was not meant to be a mystery to him and he’d somehow forgotten a friend’s name and appearance.

It was in that break that Chrom introduced himself to Robin for the first time, and it was in that break that Robin’s life really started changing.

The nightmares got immediately more intense, more graphic, and as he got to know Chrom better they got worse and worse until one day that most important man on the battlefields of his dreams had a face when he was bleeding out in front of him, leaving Robin to wake with a shudder and barely held back tears.

That was when he realised why Chrom had been so familiar, why his name hadn’t been surprising when he spoke it in that first meeting. Because Robin knew him. Somehow. In some weird way that he really couldn’t fathom.

He didn’t mention it to Chrom throughout their rapidly budding friendship, and he didn’t mention it when they kissed at a drinks event at the end of term when both of them were slightly tipsy. He didn’t mention it all through the summer, when he was plagued by nightly visions of his new boyfriend dying or getting grievously injured over and over. It felt like too soon to talk about that kind of thing. It would shout ‘clingy boyfriend’ and he didn’t want to lose Chrom over something so strange.

But that didn’t mean he stayed silent forever. He couldn’t, not when Chrom came to stay during the summer. Robin felt pretty embarrassed, honestly, about the size of the home he shared with his mother. Chrom’s family were really rich, and he didn’t have a spare bedroom or even much floor space, but Chrom insisted it was fine.

He also really, really wanted to share a bed. Which was fine. Except Chrom wasn’t the heaviest sleeper in the world, and Robin’s sleep was very much disturbed. All the time. Every night. And he didn’t know what he’d do, watching Chrom die in his dream and then waking up with the real man himself lying next to him.

It turned out that he did the obvious. The dream was a nasty one, a recurring one, one that had only existed since he met Chrom. They were fighting, side by side, against someone Robin couldn’t identify but he knew was vile. In the bit of his brain that subscribed to Freud (a very, very small part. Miniscule, in fact), he was pretty sure the man was the father he’d never met.

But when the battle was done, and he and Chrom embraced, it always went the same way. In the dream, he lost control of his limbs. He attacked Chrom. And Chrom died, tears in his eyes, begging him not to blame himself. And as he collapsed to the floor, Robin woke up, choking back a cry.

The room was dark. It was late at night. Chrom was at the other side of the bed, his eyes open. He was looking directly at Robin, concern on his face. For a moment, the fear shot through his heart that Chrom’s eyes were open because he was dead, gone, but then Chrom reached out. “Robin?” he whispered. “I’m here.”

“Did I wake you up?” he asked quietly. Chrom nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said firmly. “You were calling my name, you sounded so scared. And, uh, you kicked me. But don’t worry, it wasn’t hard.” Robin honestly just felt mortified. He hadn’t wanted to disturb Chrom. He felt like he’d ruined the man’s night of sleep now.

Chrom shifted closer, wrapping his arms around Robin’s waist. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m right here, and I’m perfectly fine. You’re fine. Do you want to talk about the dream? Emm always says it makes them feel less real.”

“Mm,” he mumbled, just pressing close to Chrom for now. He could hear his heartbeat. He could tell he was alive. For now, that was enough. Talking could come later, when all the shadows in his mind were chased away by the radiant light Chrom was in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you can think of anything to say, please leave a comment :) my writing is a bit rusty because I haven't written properly in a while and any feedback is appreciated.


End file.
